Qatar has a noble goal in educating marginalised children, said Thomas R Krift, SCI’s Regional Director for the Middle East and Eurasia, during a recent visit to Doha.
DOHA: A top official at Save the Children International (SCI), the largest children’s charity, has praised Qatar’s efforts to significantly reduce the number of out-of-school children globally.
Qatar has a noble goal in educating marginalised children, said Thomas R Krift, SCI’s Regional Director for the Middle East and Eurasia, during a recent visit to Doha.
“Qatar has a noble goal to provide access to quality primary education to out- of-school children suffering due to poverty, conflicts and natural disasters,” he told The Peninsula.
Save the Children has partnered with Qatar’s Educate A Child (EAC), in Côte d’Ivoire and Thailand/Myanmar to help children affected by conflict to enrol and stay in school. In Ethiopia, a Save the Children and EAC partnership is working to reach the most marginalised children across five regions, three major cities, and two refugee camps with quality primary education.
“We partner with Educate a Child, in Thailand and Myanmar for a cross border programme. In all those partnerships, our emphasis is on access to education, to really try that schools are available for the less privileged population,” said Krift.
EAC is a programme of Education Above All Foundation (EAA) founded in 2012 by H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. EAA aims to build a global movement that contributes to human, social and economic development through the provision of quality education. Under the mandate, the EAC programme aims to provide access to primary education to out- of-school children. It has commitments in place to reach ten million children by this year.
“I hope with other partners, Educate A Child is getting closer to the noble goal of providing primary education to ten million out of school chidlren,” said Thomas R Krift
Krift, in his role as the Regional Director for the Middle East and Eurasia for Save the Children International, oversees strategy development, as well as the implementation of both development and humanitarian response programs, in 19 countries.
He was in Doha to attend the Qatar Foundation’s Second Annual Conference for the Doha International Family Institute, where he spoke about changing role of NGOs in conflict and family policy.
Krift emphasized on the need for international organizations to work with local partners, and develop new partnerships and ways of working with a broader group of stakeholders.
“In conflict areas where we might be more targeted for the simple reason that we are an international NGO, we work very closely with local partners who are generally better positioned to respond and has better access to the community,” he said.
“So our focus is working closely with the partners, if you look at Syria as a good example, many of those national partner organizations existed prior to the conflict and worked in health and education but not necessarily focused on humanitarian response. What we bring to them is not just the funding but we help in operations with our long experience with disaster relief, responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crisis ,” he added.
He also said that Save the Children’s work in areas of informal education and health is integrated with psycho-social activities to help children overcome psychological challenges faced during conflicts.
